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5 Themes for Sustainable Development
and Related Policy Topics

1) BUILDING A NEW SYSTEM FOR A NEW CENTURY

The U.S. system of environmental management, largely built since 1970,
has dramatically improved our ability to protect public health and the
natural environment. Today, our goal has broadened
from environmental protection to the more encompassing concept of
sustainable development, and as we move ahead we must build a New System
for a New Century.

We have learned many lessons over the last 25 years. We now realize
that we cannot address economic, environmental, and social problems in
isolation. We now know that anticipating and
preventing problems through planning and foresight is far more
cost-effective than having to
solve them later. We now understand that the adversarial nature of the
current system stymies solutions that can be found when potential
adversaries cooperate and collaborate. We see
clearly that many of the most creative and lasting solutions arise from
innovative communities. These perspectives help put us in a better
position to make good decisions.

For the past 25 years, the government has relied primarily upon an
"end-of-the-pipe" approach to protect the environment. While this
traditional approach remains important, we have the
opportunity to use a greater variety of tools as we make sustainable
development a reality. The objective is to achieve a higher standard of
environmental quality and protection, but more
cost effectively and with more flexibility on how we achieve the standard.

Policy Topics:

Development of a new environmental regulatory system based
upon performance, flexibility, and accountability.

Extended product stewardship.

Harnessing of Market Forces to Improve Performance

a) Tax Reform
b) Subsidy Reform
c) Market Incentives

Strenthened Intergovernmental Partnerships

Government Procurement Practices

Strengthening of Democracies

2) INFORMATION FOR QUALITY DECISIONS

Accurate information is at the heart of good decision making. With
quality information, governments can tailor solutions to solve problems
in the most efficient manner; businesses
can make decisions that are good for the bottom line and good for the
environment; and citizens can participate effectively in decisions that
affect their communities. Better information
lies at the heart of better choices. Much of what we think is important
for sustainable development revolves around providing flexibility
concerning choices and options to consumers,
the private sector, and governments. Quality information is essential
if this strategy is to succeed.

This importance of sound information extends from the needs of an
individual shopping for the most environmentally friendly product, to
communities that want to understand the environmental
challenges facing their families, to policymakers who want to know how
resource depletion affects or national economy. In each case, good
information helps lead to good decisions.

Policy Topics:

New Environmental Income Accountsa) National Income Accounts
b) Private Sector Environmental Accounting

Informed Choices in Personal Decision Making

New National Indicators for Sustainable Development

Consumer Information about the Environmental Consequences of Their Product Choices

3) STRENGTHENING COMMUNITIES

It is within communities that sustainable or unsustainable development
is most apparent. This is true of communities of place, such as
neighborhoods or cities, and communities of interest, such as
professional organizations, churches, and families. The Council found
strong communities across the United States forging a vision of the
future that included prosperity, fairness, opportunity, a healthy
environment, and a connection to the beauty of nature because that is
what people want for their children. A sustainable nation begins with
these kinds of communities and these visions.

Most environmental, economic, and social policy decisions that relate to
sustainability play out immediately in communities. Differing interests
can best come together locally and power the change that will have
long-term national and global ramifications. But they can do so only if
the institutions of our society--federal and state governments,
business, universities, and community organizations--support them. But
this can happen only if citizens step forward to do the work and take
responsibility.

Today, a trend of civic disengagement is moving through the United
States. It is inimical to our collective hopes for a sustainable
future, and we as a Council believe that the best antidote to this
isolation, apathy, and despair is to give people greater power and
responsibility to participate in decisions that will shape their lives
and communities. As communities grow stronger, so do our chances for a
stronger democracy, a vibrant economy, a healthy environment, and
expanded opportunity for all citizens. By strengthening our
communities, we strengthen our nation and set an example for the world.

Policy Topics:

Participatory Decision Making and Civic Involvement

Community Design and Antidote to Sprawl

Create Sustainable Local Economies

Maintaining Safe and Healthy Communities

4) ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

Stewardship is looking after the property or valuables owned by someone
else. To practice environmental stewardship, then, is to assume
responsibility for the quality of air, water, soil, the fate of other
living creatures, and needs for food and shelter. We are the
environmental stewards of our fellow human beings throughout the world,
and--importantly--for the generations yet to come.

Such stewardship is the essence of sustainable development. Without
this commitment, without an ethic based on an understanding and
acceptance of this obligation, every other effort will fail in time.

Environmental stewardship becomes more complex as a greater number of
human beings, benefiting from active economies, create greater stress on
the environment. From the environment, we demand even more: fertile
soil; clean and abundant water; healthy air; safe food; and wood, fuel
and building supplies. The limited and declining ability of the
environment to absorb waste and toxins, and thereby permit humans to
profit--in every sense of that term--from environmental systems will be
under greater strain.

We are encountering more frequent conflicts between the needs of humans
and the ability of the environment to meet those needs. Some conflicts
stem from the thoughtless use of or harm to resources once thought
inexhaustible. Witness decades of dumping wastes into rivers and oceans
or the serious depletion of the continental forests. Others may arise
from development decisions made when information was too sketchy to
reveal the full consequences of the decisions. Years of indifference to
the value of wetlands led to the loss of half of the nation's wetlands.
Whatever the origin, these conflicts reveal the strength of the
connection among human well-being, economic activity, and environmental
health.

Environmental stewardship must begin with each person's recognition and
acceptance of responsibility, but it is also a collective community
undertaking. Collaborative and distinctly local approaches to
environmental stewardship often are associated with frightful disasters,
such as major floods or massive storms. Yet, whenever developers and
citizens cooperate to create ways to meld economic and environmental
activities and goals, stewardship is at work--as in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, where environmental problems and economic woes are
dramatically improved by the innovation created by a whole new economic
base.

Stewardship's potential is reflected in the national commitment to
manage all U.S. forest resources in accordance with the principles of
sustainability by the turn of the century. The need for more
environmental stewardship is revealed in the serious distress of
once-abundant ocean fish stocks, the legacy today of lax management,
which occurred despite scientists' warnings.

The human footprint on the environment grows even as evidence of
environmental sensitivity increases. Major strides have been made in
clean air, clean water, and soil conservation, but fish stock declines
and other forms of resource degradation make self-congratulation
premature and highlight the importance of basing environmental
stewardship on local understanding and commitment.

How can we develop an ethic of environmental stewardship? People need
to understand the environmental principles involved, the connection
between environmental health and human and economic well-being, and the
processes by which governmental actions at every level can create
desired lifelong changes. Education is also important to developing
such an ethic, as is confidence that citizen action can make a
difference. People, bonded by a similar purpose, can work together to
make sustainable development real.

The following policy recommendations and actions are examples of ways
environmental stewardship can be used to move the nation toward
sustainable development.

Policy Topics:

Creating Partnerships for Conservation

Replenishing and Protecting Fisheries

Achieving Sustainable Forests

Safeguarding Prime Farmland

Enhancing Government's Role in Agriculture

U.S. POPULATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

With a population of more than 260 million, the United States is the
third largest country in the world. At the current rate of 1 percent
annual growth, the U.S. population is increasing by 3 million people
each year--more than twice the annual growth rate in most of Europe.
The U.S. Census Bureau projects that, if current demographic trends
persist, the United States will have a population of 350 million by 2030
and almost 400 million by the middle of the next century. This growth
is putting increasing stresses on the natural systems that sustain life
and make prosperity possible.

While we do not know the exact mixture of population size, resource use,
and technological innovation that would make the United States
sustainable, we do know that current trends are not sustainable. Worse,
over the next decade, U.S. population growth is projected to offset even
a 10 percent gain in the efficiency with which we use resources.
Similarly, continued population growth means that per capita consumption
of natural resources would need to fall by half in the next 50 years
just to keep environmental impacts at current levels. Population growth
also challenges the nation's efforts to provide good, new jobs for all
working-age Americans, and it impedes efforts to raise real wages in the
nation.

Working to stabilize U.S. population voluntarily while increasing
materials and energy efficiency in the production and use of all goods
and services in the economy are mutually reinforcing processes. Both
are equally necessary and essential steps in the move toward sustainability.